Lat. consanguinitas; com, and sanguis, blood), or Kindred, is defined by the writers on this subject to be vinculum persarum ab eodem stipite descendentium, that is, the connection or relation of persons descended from the same stock or common ancestor. This consanguinity is either lineal or collateral.

Lineal consanguinity is that which subsists between persons of whom one is descended in a direct line from the other. It falls strictly within the definition of vinculum persarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; since lineal relations are such as descend one from the other, and both of course from the same common ancestors.

Collateral kindred answers to the same description; collateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that they descend from the same stock or ancestor, but with this difference, that they do not descend the one from the other. Collateral kinsmen, then, are such as lineally spring from one and the same ancestor, who is the *stipes*, or root, as well as the *stipes*, trunk, or common stock whence these relations branch out.

**CONSCIENCE.** See Moral Philosophy.

**CONSCIOUSNESS.** See Metaphysics.

**CONSCRIPT,** in Roman Antiquity, an appellation given to the senators of Rome, who were called *patres conscripti* (conscript fathers), because their names were written in a register of the senate. See Senate.

**CONSCRIPTION,** the plan adopted by the French and some other nations for recruiting their armies.

The Code de la Conscription forms a part of the French system of jurisprudence, and furnishes the most complete body of regulations for working this tremendous engine of military despotism.

The conscription was first published in the form of a general law by the Council of Ancients in 1798, and afterwards underwent some slight modifications.

By the law of the Directory, which is attributed to Carnot, all Frenchmen are pronounced soldiers; and, when the country is in danger, they are liable to be summoned to its defence; but in ordinary circumstances the wants of the army are to be supplied by the conscription. The legislative body, at the suggestion of the executive government, determines the requisite number of conscripts. The contingent of each department is regulated by the law in proportion to its population, and subdivided by the same rule among the districts, cantons, and municipalities. All Frenchmen between the full age of 20 and 25 complete are liable to the conscription.

At the drawing or designation by lot of those who are to form the quota of the district, those who draw the numbers below the amount of the quota are taken for active service. Absentees not presenting themselves within a month after the drawing, are declared and pursued as deserters. Besides the contingent for active service, the law requires an equal number to form the conscription of the reserve, who are to march only in cases of emergency, which emergency, however, during war, has almost always been found to exist. These are all organized and carefully disciplined. A third class is also allotted for equal to one-fourth of the whole contingent, who are called the supplemental conscripts, being destined to fill up the vacancies that may occur before junction at headquarters. The conscription is enforced with rigour, and parents are held responsible for their absent children, till they can produce an official attestation of their death.

Against all parents, public functionaries, or others, who conscript contribute to defeat or retard the operation of the law, there are heavy denunciations. Any health officer convicted of furnishing a false certificate of infirmity, is subjected to five years' imprisonment in irons. Other offences against the Code de la Conscription are punished with corresponding severity. Every conscript absenting himself for 24 hours from his depot is treated as a deserter. The penalty for desertion is—public or hard labour, the punishment of the ball, or death. In the punishment of the ball, an iron ball of eight pounds weight, fastened to an iron chain of seven feet in length, is attached to the leg of the deserter. He first hears his sentence read on his knees, and is condemned to ten hours hard labour daily, and in the interval of rest chained in solitary confinement. The duration of the punishment is ten years, aggravated by every mark of ignominy in dress and appearance; and in cases of contumacy it is prolonged beyond ten years, with an additional ball fastened to the leg.

The directory admitted of no substitution, and it is still studiously discouraged by the Government; but the severity of this principle is now relaxed in a few special cases. Even in these, however, the conditions attached to them are exceedingly oppressive. For the great majority even of the better classes of conscripts, it is almost impossible to obtain proxies.

The legal duration of the service is seven years; but the dread of the hardships and of the indeterminate duration of military service, enhance enormously the price of eligible substitutes.

The system of conscription is no doubt a simple and ready means for obtaining the requisite number of soldiers; and so would a system of confiscation be a ready means for obtaining funds for carrying on a war. In fact, the conscription is a system of confiscation; it falls with peculiar hardship upon the poor, and upon those of slender fortunes. When dragged from their peaceful pursuits, their prospects in life are often ruined; and whether they sacrifice their domestic happiness and join the ranks, or ransom themselves at the expense of their small property, they are equally despoiled of their most valued possessions.

In an impending invasion it might be imperative to call upon all who are fit to bear arms, or such of them as can be most readily gathered together, without distinction, to rally round the standard of their country; but in the ordinary cases of warfare this is not necessary.

Louis XIV., when at war with the whole of the north of Europe, maintained an army of 300,000, made up by ordinary levies; and even the forces of Louis XVI., recruited

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1. *La Presse* of September 1, 1849, contained, under the head of "The Net Product of Twenty Years of War," a remarkable article in support of its arguments in favour of a reduction of the army. It is as follows:

| Levy of June 24, 1791 | 135,000 | |----------------------|--------| | Conscription of Vend. 5, an XIII | 135,000 | | Vend. 12, an XIII | 135,000 | | Vend. 2, an XIV | 135,000 | | December 15, 1796 | 135,000 | | April 7, 1807 | 135,000 | | January 21, 1808 | 135,000 | | September 1, 1812 | 135,000 | | November 15, 1815 | 135,000 | | October 5, 1860 | 135,000 |

Total | 4,555,000 |

Napoleon, for his part, obtained by the conscription 2,476,000 men. Those who set out were never freed from service. Spain was the tomb of most of our own soldiers; what remained perished almost entirely in the snows of Russia. The army of 1813 was composed of recruits from 18 to 20 years of age. Illness, fatigue, and privation, decimated them. Of the 1,260,000 men raised in 1813, there remained, in 1814, to defend the soil of France, but 100,000 men above the guard. In 1792 France had, as now, 85 departments. The conquests of the Republic gave her, in two years, the Rhine and the Alps for frontiers. From 1794 to 1800, the number of conscript departments increased by 19, and made 105. Napoleon, in 1805, joined to France, Holland, Switzerland (Germanic part of Italy), and created 27 new departments, France then having 132. In 1814, France was reduced to her old limits of 1790, and from her were taken Marienburg, Prussia, and the Low Countries. Such, then, was the result of twenty years' gigantic wars, heroic efforts, immeasurable sacrifices, and bloodshed on every battle-field of Europe. A single battle lost, that of Waterloo, sufficed to take from France the fruit of twenty immortal victories, and to render her smaller in 1845 than in 1790. But that is not all! To 4,500,000 of men (how many nations have not 4,500,000 souls!) cut down by balls and bullets, must be added 7,000,000 of indemnity of war paid by France to the Allied Powers, and which was payable in equal portions in five years by means of bonds to bearer on the royal treasury, plus 490,000,000 for the support of the foreign garrison, plus a multitude of various indemnities, the whole amounting to nearly two milliards. in the same manner, amounted to 200,000. The regular troops levied by enlistments, and maintained by Great Britain, in 1815, exceeded 250,000, exclusive of the ordnance.

Were war and conquest, as in some of the states of antiquity, the great object and business of a nation, then it might be advisable to have such an organization as would furnish a constant supply to replace the wear and tear of successive military campaigns, and the population at large might be treated as the materiel for this purpose; but since civilized nations have learnt to consider war as an unmitigated evil, to be encountered only when every means to avoid it consistent with safety has failed, it is surely unwise to have recourse to an organized system of compulsion to force a large portion of the population to forsake the arts of peace and those industrial pursuits which are the true sources of national wealth and prosperity. And what adds to the malignity of the system is the fact, that the conscripts are taken at a time of life when they are beginning to settle down into those habits of industry and enterprise which form the useful and respectable citizen; habits which can scarcely be acquired after years of roving restless excitement in camps and warfare.

If a country requires soldiers, why should not fair inducements be offered to recruits, as well as to others employed in the public service? There is no difficulty in finding an abundance of qualified candidates for the lowest situations in the public offices, and there is even no want of competitors to fill the ranks of the police establishments. Then let there be sufficient inducement and fair remuneration held out, and the ranks of the army will be voluntarily filled by men disposed to adopt the military life as a profession, and whom it will neither be a hardship nor a loss to withdraw from other pursuits to military service.